Posts Tagged ‘Pelosi’

This is like the dog. Yes, forty or so years ago Mitt Romney went on a family vacation with the dog travelling on the roof in a crate. But at least he Romney didn’t EAT his dog. You would have thought the Obama campaign that made such a big damn deal about Romney’s dog would consider the contents of their boss’ stomach.

Democrats are evil for a number of reasons. At the very pinnacle is the fact that Democrats are abject moral hypocrites and the quintessential sine qua non essence of liberalism is hypocrisy.

On the heels of The Weekly Standard’sreport yesterday that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz — a vocal critic of Mitt Romney‘s investing practices, had herself dabbled in the foreign markets — we can add Nancy Pelosi to the list of prominent Democrats to profit from overseas investments.

According to Pelosi’s 2011 financial disclosure statement, the Democratic House Minority Leader received between $1 million and $5 million in partnership income from ”Matthews International Capital Management LLC,” a group that emphasizes that it has a “A Singular Focus on Investing in Asia.” A quick trip to the company website reveals a featured post extolling the virtues of outsourcing.

It’s not surprising that a wealthy politician would invest globally (nor should it be considered problematic). This is interesting because of the attacks on Mitt Romney’s investments — because Obama purportedly believes in the virtues of “insourcing” and anti-globalization. (Obama appears to be running on a protectionist platform that went out of style with Canadian tuxedos)

Obama sure can preach the economic nationalism, but it doesn’t appear his fellow leaders and surrogates are buying the message.

If they aren’t, why should other Americans?

Here’s the thing: there’s nothing wrong with Nancy Pelosi investing in Asia, or Valerie Jarrett or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz having offshore accounts, or Obama having “outsourcers” on his jobs council per se – apart from the fact that these rabidly evil pathologically dishonest cockroaches are vile hypocrites who do the very same thing that the demonize their opponents over even as demonize them. It’s the same thing with our national security: Democrats have documented over and over again that they are pathological hypocrite liars who demonized Bush for policies only to have to turn around and uphold those policies because Bush was right and Democrats were evil. People ought to have the right to invest wherever they believe they will get the best return; outsourcing is complicated and is often – though hardly always – good for America. But the truth doesn’t matter when professional liars slander and demonize at such high speed the truth cannot possibly keep up.

Democrats are dishonest liars. It is simply what they have become by their very nature. They couldn’t care less about the truth; they couldn’t care less about what abject hypocrites they are. All they care about is rhetoric and demagoguery. And so they spout outrageous lies when they themselves are far worse than the people they are lying about. And they get away with it again and again because they know that the mainstream media – propagandists all – are as dishonest as they are. And they get away with it because the American people are becoming more ignorant and frankly stupid and more apathetic and uninvolved with reality. The media repeats a liberal lie across the front pages and the network programs thousands of times, and the subsequent correction – if its even mentioned – comes so late and is so buried that an apathetic people will never be able to find it.

That’s why the beast, the Antichrist, is coming. And that’s why the American people will soon be worshiping him and joyfully taking this big government messiah’s mark. And it is why they will burn in hell.

One of the reasons it took twenty days for Rep. Anthony Weiner to resign when it didn’t take much more than twenty minutes for Speaker Boehner to demand Rep. Chris Lee’s resignation turned out to be the hold-up of some kind of job for him.

Want to know a primary reason that thus far Weiner is refusing to quit despite the calls for him to do so from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, NY Rep. Steve Israel, chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign committee and others? A big reason is he simply cannot afford to. His world has been turned upside down overnight, and the nation’s politicians are incensed by it – but it really comes down to the fact that his finances don’t lend many options right now.

As The NY Post reported “Weiner doesn’t have a business or even a law degree to fall back on. He made $156,117 in 2010, and owes between $10,000 and $15,000 on his American Express card according to his most recent financial-disclosure forms.” Anthony Weiner, the man, has never had another job since starting in politics at the age of 21 in 1985. The future career possibilities for the 46 year old “object” Anthony Weiner aren’t too bright these days.

We are talking about a man who has never held a private sector job in his entire life.

Last year, the now-jobless Weiner joked on former roommate Jon Stewart’s cable comedy show that he didn’t “have a lot of marketable skills.” It’s one of Weiner’s rare truthful utterances over the past year. A protégé of fossilized New York Sen. Charles Schumer, Weiner has spent the last 20 years in politics – straight out of college to the present. Through seven consecutive congressional terms, he has stridently advocated job-killing policies in the name of the working class. About which this ruling-class elitist knows nothing.

But it turns out Weiner DOES have one highly marketable skill: he is a rarefied pervert. And in a degenerate world of pornography (a gift of liberals and liberal judges who said they couldn’t tell the difference between “art” and “porn” no matter how much of it they watched), being the level of sexual pervert that Weiner clearly is DOES have value:

And who is this voice of liberalism? An arrogant perverted punk who has spent his entire life on the taxpayer dole and who has absolutely no redeeming quality whatsoever in the world he demanded to have the power to regulate and then regulate some more.

Which just gets more to the point: if you vote for Democrats, you are a true fool indeed.

Michelle Malkin wrote a brilliant chapter in her book, Culture of Corruption. It details how liberals make incredibly lucrative careeers moving from politics (either in elected office or as staffers) to crony capitalism (as lobbyists or in firms that want to schmooze politicians). Michelle Obama is an example of this, as is Rahm Emanuel, as is Valerie Jarrett. Crony capitalism is nothing more than fascism in waiting. These people get rich gaming the system even as they corrupt and rot the system from within like leeches.

I remember once attending a lecture from the great analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga. He told a couple of good jokes. One of them was a chance encounter with a mathematician at a university who worked with a fellow professor who was a solipsist. For the record, solipsism is basically the belief that only your own mind exists, and that basically everyone and everything else around you is a figment of your imagination. Plantinga was fascinated with this, and asked the mathematician what it was like working with someone who literally believed you didn’t exist. And the mathematician said, “It’s okay, I suppose. We tend to take pretty good care of him, because if anything were to ever happen to him, that would be it for the rest of us.”

Philosophers love jokes like that.

Barack Obama is so incredibly narcissistic that you begin to wonder if he’s like that mathematician, and thinks that only he exists, or that only he matters.

If you’re president of China, people around the world who are fighting for freedom don’t really expect you to help. If you’re president of China, you don’t have to put up with annoying off-year congressional elections, and then negotiate your budget with a bunch of gun-and-religion-clinging congressmen and senators. If you’re president of China, you can fund your national public radio to your heart’s content. And if you’re president of China, when you host a conference on bullying in schools, people take you seriously.

Unfortunately for him and us, Barack Obama is president of the United States. That job brings with it certain special responsibilities. It’s a tough job—maybe tougher than being president of China. But Barack Obama ran for president of the United States. Maybe he should start behaving as one.

The people of Japan just survived a massive 8.9 earthquake. Then they managed to live through a gigantic wall of water from a tsunami. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they then found out that they would be trapped in the wreckage of their homes – unable to either leave or be rescued – because of radiation leaks resulting from a nuclear meltdown. And what do these people say? “Poor Barry Obama-san! We are very fortunate indeed that we do not have the difficulties of his life! We have no food, no clothes, no place to sleep and we are sick from radiation; but at least we are not being scrutinized!”

I mean, who cares about everybody else; it’s clearly all about Barry Hussein and the hard time he’s having in the job he told so many lies to get. Wah!

It’s rather obvious that we should all have a serious pity party for this loser. Only he matters, after all.

I’ve got a few suggestions beyond Kristol’s for Barry H. First of all, he could quit. I for one wouldn’t complain, especially if Obama took his fellow incompetent Joe Biden with him and allowed John Boehner to cry at his swearing-in ceremony. Because as much as that man might cry, at least he doesn’t whine.

The second thing I have to point out is that here we’ve got Obama publicly wishing he were the tyrant totalitarian dictator of a communist country. I think the fact that he’s plagued with a democratic republic – which he despises – is finally getting to him. Why can’t he run over his dissenters with tanks like the Chinese leaders can, he apparently wonders. Because, you know, Barry, the reason they don’t scrutinize the Chinese dictator’s words in Tahrir Square is the same reason they didn’t scrutinize the Chinese dictator’s words following the events in another square – Tiananmen Square and the Tiananmen Square Massacre, to be precise.

And I know that you would crave nothing more – you Marxist-fascist tin-plated tyrant – than to be able to “punish your enemies” the way the Chinese presidents do it.

Another thing I would point out is that maybe the reason people aren’t scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words as much as they are yours is because Hu Jintao tells the truth more than you do. Maybe if you told the damn truth just once people would stop finding out that, sure enough, you lied to us again.

One of Obama’s lies was about “unparalleled transparency.” Remember that one? Now the same guy who talked about being the most transparent president in the history of the world is whining about being scrutinized, as if this lying little weasel can’t stand it that someone would have actually taken one of his galling and unmitigated lies seriously. And the end result is – fittingly – stories like this one.

“When I promised you unparalleled transparency, what I meant was how dare you examine what I’m constantly trying to do behind your backs!”

So get your skinny butt out of the White House and go pout to China. Go away mad, but please just go away. Sadly, the Chinese people are far too smart to make the same O.B.A.M.A. (as in, “One Big Ass Mistake, America”) as the American people stupidly made by giving you a job.

Facing a midnight Saturday deadline when a stopgap funding measure expires, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would work with Republican leader Mitch McConnell to produce a bill to keep the federal government running into early next year.

The 1,924-page bill collapsed of its own weight after an outcry from conservatives who complained it was stuffed with more than $8 billion in homestate pet projects known as earmarks.

Reid, D-Nev., gave up on the bill after several Republicans who had been thinking of voting for it pulled back their support. McConnell, R-Ky., threw his weight against the bill in recent days, saying it was “unbelievable” that Democrats would try to muscle through in the days before Christmas legislation that usually takes months to debate.

“Just a few weeks after the voters told us they don’t want us rushing major pieces of complicated, costly, far-reaching legislation through Congress, we get this,” McConnell said. “This is no way to legislate.”

The turn of events was a major victory for earmark opponents like Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who for years have been steamrolled by the old-school members of the powerful Appropriations Committee.

The spending barons saw their power ebb in the wake of midterm elections that delivered major gains for Republicans — with considerable help from anti-spending tea party activists.

“We just saw something extraordinary on the floor of the United States Senate,” a grinning McCain said.

Harry Reid, true to his demagogic form, blamed Republicans for stonewalling even given the fact that he never even TRIED to bring up a budget or numerous appropriations bills that led to this last-minute fiasco.

Because when you are an incompetent disgrace from a party of disgraceful incompetents, you can always blame somebody else no matter how badly you failed to attend to the most basic agenda items.

So spend two years wasting the people’s time passing legislation like ObamaCare that the overwhelming majority of Americans did not want and continued to not want, and then at the last minute throw out a 2,00o page pork bill filled with 6,714 earmarks. Because your spineless president will pontificate about how he’s opposed to signing bills laden with earmarks, and then sign the Democrat bill loaded up with earmarks. The last time, Obama signed an omnibus bill loaded up with 9,000 earmarks. In spite of his crystal-clear promise not to sign such a bill.

And it would have worked again, too. Except the American people handed Democrats the largest “Up Yours!” message to a political party in 72 years, and Republicans have actually developed something approaching a spine.

This Congress has tried to pass the DREAM Act which would let illegal immigrants go to college ahead of American kids, and then reward them for going to college with citizenship. They’re on their way to passing a bill that would end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell which would force homosexuality onto our military during a time of war when maybe social engineering should take a back door (pun intended). They’re vowing to push a bill that would nationalize all police and firefighter unions and impose the union agenda no matter how much it isn’t wanted.

Because Democrats are loathsome, vile and utterly contemptible.

This is THE most repudiated Congress in the history of Congress. But that doesn’t stop them from trying to sneak or ram all kinds of immoral garbage onto the country rather than let the Congress that the people just elected take over the people’s business.

Keep fighting the monsters, Republicans.

P.S.

For Harry Reid, I suggest a crucifix and a silver blade. For Nancy Pelosi, you’ll need a flamethrower.

“It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance. The biggest bang for the buck,” she said

Pelosi said that for every dollar a person receives in food stamps, $1.79 is put back into the economy.

Apparently, according to the leading Democrat in Congress, if every single American lost their job, and went on unemployment and food stamps, our economy would nearly double overnight, obviously resulting in an immediate recovery.

Which is to say, Obama, Pelosi and Reid should destroy even MORE jobs so that even MORE Americans are on unemployment and food stamps. The more Americans getting food stamps, the bigger the bang. And if Democrats get the chance to destroy a few more million jobs, all those millions of people receiving unemployment and food stamps will have our economy raring back in no time due to that zany multiplier effect.

This is the big reason why they’ve made such a mess of the economy. They actually believe the more the government spends, the better off we all are — contrary to all evidence that suggests, in fact, cutting spending would push up economic growth.

The mistakes began as soon as the new administration entered office. Then, two of its main economic advisers, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, estimated a multiplier effect from government spending of up to 1.55. That is, for every $1 the government spent, the economy would grow by as much as $1.55.

But a study by the International Monetary Fund debunks the idea. As noted by Stanford University economist John Taylor, the IMF study shows a multiplier of just 0.70 — that is, for every $1 the government spends, the economy sees just 70 cents in activity.

“This means that government spending crowds out other components of GDP (investment, consumption, net exports) immediately and by a large amount,” wrote Taylor (see chart).

In short, two years of massive government bailouts and the projected surge in spending-driven deficits of as much as $12 trillion over the next decade have done nothing to make our economy healthier.

Instead, we are 3.8 million jobs in the red since President Obama took over. Unemployment remains stubbornly close to 10%, even as the White House touts its “Recovery Summer.”

The International Monetary Fund – which has been a great friend of liberals – utterly contradicts the ridiculous multiplier effect cited by the White House and now by Nancy Pelosi. A picture is worth a thousand words, in this case:

Democrats are mocking Christine O’Donnell as a witch; but Nancy Pelosi is the real witch, in that she believes she can magically transform a dollar into a dollar seventy-nine – just by blessing it with bureaucratic magic.

House Democratic leaders, worried they’ve appeared unresponsive to rising unemployment because they were absorbed by healthcare, are aiming for a legislation solution by Christmas.

That focus follows a similar shift in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told colleagues he also plans to bring up a jobs measure, The Hill reported first last week.

The House change began Monday night when leaders scheduled AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, to address the House Democratic Caucus.

And it could end with an economic package on the floor sometime in December, Democratic sources said.

But some leadership aides cautioned that leaders are still debating whether to do one large package or a series of smaller bills.

And they say the Obama administration has yet to get on board.

One way or another, aides say, House Democrats’ message from now to Christmas will be about jobs.

“We continue to look for opportunities to build on the recovery package and other actions Congress has taken to bolster the economy,” said Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Leaders want members to have something to take home with them to show that they’re working on the economy. But they have to balance that against growing discomfort among voters about skyrocketing government spending.

It’s not that Democrats give a damn about jobs; they just want to make sure like they LOOK like they give a damn about jobs.

To get as far as the bill did so far, it appears the administration might have spread some money around. California Rep. Jim Costa was wavering but told a local newspaper last week that his vote could be contingent on getting some federal money for a new medical school in his district along with help for local hospitals.

When a constituent named Bob Smittcamp e-mailed him to complain about his vote for the House bill, the congressman explained he’d been offered the dollars he was looking for — $128 million in federal money.

“He responded to me by basically saying that he did not like many of the elements there were in the legislation. However, he was able to procure $128m for the University of California medical school in Merced,” Smittcamp told Fox News.

1) The Democrats are literally afraid that the American people will recognize the truth and get angry about it.

2) Democrats have absolutely no clue how to create jobs. And Obama has even less of a clue than the other Democrats.

3) The Democrats are turning their “job creation” over to the unions.

And it’s number three that frankly pisses me off the most.

It’s amazing that the SEIU only has 2.2 million members, but more influence than anyoneelse bar none in the Obama administration. SEIU president Andy Stern – basically a confirmed Marxist – has had more visits to the White House (22 so far) than ANYONE.

“Your agenda has been my agenda in the United States Senate. Before debating health care, I talked to Andy Stern and SEIU members. Before immigration debates took place in Washington, I talked with Eliseo Medina and SEIU members. Before the EFCA, I talked to SEIU. So, we’ve worked together over these last few years and I am proud of what we’ve done. I’m just not satisfied.”

“We’re trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to use the persuasion of power”

And Obama’s union thugs are all about using “the persuasion of power.”

Glenn Beck pointed out that he had a solid 3 million viewers. And he wondered how the American people would act if HE had had more visits than anyone else to the Bush White House, and got to write the stimulus and the “job creation” legislation.

The AFL-CIO has about 11.5 million members, based on their own information. With a total of 15.4 million union members in the United States. Rush Limbaugh has 14.2 to 25 million listeners, according to the Washington Post. And I wonder how liberals would react if Rush Limbaugh had more visits to the White House than anyone, and got to write the laws that will run the nation.

So you start to see just how blatantly partisan and ideological the Democrat Party truly is. The union agenda is just as hostile to what Republicans want for the nation as Glenn Beck’s or Rush Limbaugh’s agenda is to what Democrats want for the nation.

We’re not just talking about partisanship; we’re talking about HYPER-HYPER-partisanship.

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city’s largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

“We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails,” Balzano told the council.

These unions don’t give a damn about you. They don’t give a damn about your family. They don’t give a damn about your community. They don’t give a damn about altruism or volunteerism or doing right. And they would burn a Boy Scout’s house down if they thought it would serve their greedy partisan interests.

And the Democrats don’t give a damn about you, either. Frankly, the Democrats aren’t much different from their number one special interest group. Democrats are now rushing to cover their hindquarters because they ignored the economy while they were focused on trying to TAKE OVER the economy via their health care agenda.

In a surprise move after hours of tumultuous negotiations, the House Rules Committee, very early Saturday morning, approved rules for debate on the pro-abortion health care bill. Although it appeared Speaker Nancy Pelosi would deny one, it allows a vote on an amendment to remove abortion funding.

Pelosi’s hand appeared to have been forced when pro-abortion House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced earlier in the daythat she did not have enough votes to pass the bill because of objections from pro-life Democrats.

The committee okayed a Rule that allows the House to vote on the Stupak amendment, offered by pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, to the health care reform legislation.

Stupak had dozens of Democrats who threatened to vote against the Rule and the bill if he did not get a vote on his amendment. If the amendment is defeated, Stupak and pro-life Democrats will likely still oppose the bill because of the abortion funding.

Republicans could have simply voted “present” and the Pelosi version of Obamacare would have died an agonizing death as moderate Democrats voted against it. But they remained true to their principles and did the honorable thing in voting for the amendment.

They passed up the opportunity to play politics and did what was right.

Which makes them better than the Democrats under Obama, Pelosi, and Reid will ever be.

Democrats got what they wanted in passing what The Wall Street Journal calls “The Worst Bill Ever.” And then they turned around immediately and began discussing how they could stab the representatives who voted for the bill because it contained the Stupak amendment in the back.

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod suggested Sunday that President Obama will intervene to make sure a controversial amendment restricting federal funding for abortion coverage is stripped from final health care reform legislation.

In doing so, the president would be heeding the call of abortion rights supporters like Planned Parenthood that have called the White House their “strongest weapon” in keeping such restrictions out of the bill.

The abortion amendment was tacked on to the House health care bill and was a key factor in securing the votes of moderate Democrats before the bill was approved by a narrow margin last weekend. The amendment, authored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., went beyond preventing the proposed government-run plan from covering abortion to restrict federal subsidies from going toward private plans that offer abortion coverage.

Axelrod said in an interview Sunday that the amendment changes the “status quo,” something the president cannot abide.

Sixty-four Democrats showed the courage of their convictions against heated opposition and voted for the Stupak amendment. I hope they learned how dishonest their leadership is from this experience. I hope next time they vote ‘no’ no matter what lies the Democrats promise.

Negotiating with Democrats is rather like negotiating with North Korea. They are a bunch of dishonest Marxists. They’ll break their word, and renege on whatever they agreed to once they get what they want.

P.S. It’s fitting that the proponents of a bill that will result in death panels as seniors die by medical neglect that will be imposed by their own government demand that abortion be included.

It’s as simple as this: Democrats want a system by which people who traditionally have not bought health insurance – including healthy young people – are forced to purchase health insurance coverage. If they do not purchase coverage, they will be forced to pay a fine. The idea is to expand coverage and spread out the risks to bring down the unit costs of health care coverage. But here’s the problem: in order to sell this government monster, Democrats gutted the amount of the fine. It’s simply not enough to serve as a suitable deterrent. Young people (and many others) will simply pay the fine and NOT purchase the considerably more expensive health care coverage, knowing that under the Democrat plan they can purchase it later, in the event they need it, and that they could not be turned down for their “pre-existing condition.” The Democrats won’t get nearly as much revenue as they claim they will. Per unit costs will necessarily skyrocket, and rationing of care will become an absolute necessity. And old people will begin dying in droves.

Which is a big part of the reason The Wall Street Journal called this “The Worst Bill Ever.”

The late D. James Kennedy once said:

“Watch out, Grandma and Grandpa! Because the generation that survived abortion will one day come after you!”

This is a prepared House Republican document which you can view as a PDF file here.

House Democrat Health “Reform” Legislation: Short Summary of the Government Takeover of Health Care

October 29, 2009

BACKGROUND AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On October 29, 2009, Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrat leadership introduced H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The legislation combines provisions in the versions of H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, approved by the Committees on Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, as well as other provisions negotiated behind closed doors by the Democrat leadership. The bill is expected on the floor the week of November 2, under a likely structured rule. While press reports indicate the bill will cost at least $894 billion, a CBO score is not yet available, and the following analysis will be updated as events warrant.

Buried within the contents of the 1,990 page bill—as well as a separate 13-page bill (H.R. 3961) that would increase the deficit by more than $200 billion—are details that will see a massive federal involvement in the health care of every American, including the following:

• Creation of a government-run insurance program that could cause as many as 114 million Americans to lose their current coverage;
• Abolition of the private market for individual health insurance, forcing individuals to purchase coverage in a government-run Exchange;
• Stifling insurance regulations that would raise premiums and encourage employers to drop coverage;
• Trillions of dollars in new federal spending that will exacerbate the deficit and imperil the nation’s long-term fiscal solvency;
• Taxes on all Americans—individuals who purchase insurance, individuals who do not purchase insurance, and millions of small businesses—that will kill jobs and raise health care premiums; and
• Cuts to Medicare Advantage plans that will result in higher premiums and dropped coverage for more than 10 million seniors.

SUMMARY OF KEY PROVISIONSThe Government Takeover

Creation of Exchange: The bill creates within the federal government a nationwide Health Insurance Exchange. Uninsured individuals would be eligible to purchase an Exchange plan, as would those whose existing employer coverage is deemed “insufficient” by the federal government. Once deemed eligible to enroll in the Exchange, individuals would be permitted to remain in the Exchange until becoming Medicare-eligible—a provision that would likely result in a significant movement of individuals into the bureaucrat-run Exchange over time. Employers with 25 or fewer employees would be permitted to join the Exchange in its first year, with employers with 25-50 employees permitted to join in its second year. Employers with fewer than 100 employees would be permitted to enroll in the third year, and all employers would also be eligible to join, if permitted to do so by the Commissioner. Many may note the limits on employer eligibility in the first several years are significantly higher than in H.R. 3200, thus expanding the scope of the government-run Exchange.

Exchange Benefit Standards: The bill requires the Commissioner to establish benefit standards for all plans. These onerous, bureaucrat-imposed standards would hinder the introduction of innovative models to improve enrollees’ health and wellness—and by insulating individuals from the cost of health services with restrictive cost-sharing, could raise health care costs.

Government-Run Health Plans: The bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a “public health insurance option” through the Exchange. The bill states the plan shall comply with requirements related to other Exchange plans. Empowered to collect individuals’ personal health information, with access to federal courts for enforcement actions and $2 billion in “start-up funds”—as well as 90 days’ worth of premiums as “reserves”—from the Treasury, the bill’s headings regarding a “level playing field” belie the reality of the plain text. In addition, the bill requires the Secretary to establish premium rates that can fully finance the cost of benefits and administrative costs, but there would always be the implicit backing of the federal government.

The bill provides that the government-run plan shall enlist all Medicare providers unless physicians affirmatively decide to opt-out of the program. While the Secretary will be required to “negotiate” reimbursement rates with doctors and hospitals, nothing in the bill prohibits the Secretary from using such negotiation to impose Medicare reimbursement levels on providers as part of a government-imposed “negotiation.” Should such a scenario occur, the Lewin Group has estimated that as many as 114 million individuals could lose access to their current coverage under a government-run plan—and that a government-run plan reimbursing at the rates contemplated by the legislation would actually result in a net $16,207 decrease in reimbursements per physician per year, even after accounting for the newly insured.

The bill requires the Secretary to “establish conditions of participation for health care providers” under the government-run plan—however it includes no guidance or conditions under which the Secretary must establish those conditions. Many may be concerned that the bill would allow the Secretary to prohibit doctors from participating in other health plans as a condition of participation in the government-run plan—a way to co-opt existing provider networks and subvert private health coverage.

“Low-Income” Subsidies: The bill provides subsidies only through the Exchange, again putting employer health plans at a disadvantage. Individuals with access to employer-sponsored insurance whose group premium costs exceed 12 percent of adjusted gross income would be eligible for subsidies.

The bill provides that the Commissioner may authorize State Medicaid agencies—as well as other “public entit[ies]”—to make determinations of eligibility for subsidies and exempts the subsidy regime from the five-year waiting period on federal benefits established as part of the 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193). The second provision would give individuals a strong incentive to emigrate to the United States in order to obtain subsidized health benefits without a waiting period. Despite the bill’s purported prohibition on payments to immigrants not lawfully present, and the insertion of a citizenship verification provision, some may be concerned that the provisions as drafted would not require individuals to verify their identity when confirming eligibility for subsidies—encouraging identity fraud while still permitting undocumented immigrants and other ineligible individuals from obtaining taxpayer-subsidized benefits.

Premium subsidies provided would be determined on a six-tier sliding scale, such that individuals with incomes under 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL, $29,327 for a family of four in 2009) would be expected to pay 1.5 percent of their income, while individuals with incomes at 400 percent FPL ($88,200 for a family of four) would be expected to pay 12 percent of their income. Subsidies would be based on adjusted gross income (AGI), meaning that individuals with total incomes well in excess of the AGI threshold could qualify for subsidies.

The bill further provides for cost-sharing subsidies, such that individuals with incomes under 133 percent FPL would be covered for 97 percent of expenses, while individuals with incomes at 400 percent FPL would have a basic plan covering 70 percent (the statutory minimum). These rich benefit packages, in addition to raising subsidy costs for the federal government, would insulate plan participants from the effects of higher health spending, resulting in an increase in overall health costs—exactly the opposite of the bill’s purported purpose.

Medicaid Expansion: The bill would expand Medicaid to all individuals with incomes under 150 percent of the federal poverty level ($33,075 for a family of four). Under the bill, the bill’s expansion of Medicaid to more than 10 million individuals would be fully paid for by the federal government only through 2014—thus imposing billions in unfunded mandates on States, which would be expected to pay nearly 10 percent of the cost of the expansion beginning in 2015.

Benefits Committee: The bill establishes a new government health board called the “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” to make recommendations on minimum federal benefit standards and cost-sharing levels. The Committee would be comprised of federal employees and Presidential appointees.

The bill eliminates language in the discussion draft of H.R. 3200 stating that Committee should “ensure that essential benefits coverage does not lead to rationing of health care.” Many view this change as an admission that the bureaucrats on the Advisory Committee—and the new government-run health plan—would therefore deny access to life-saving services and treatments on cost grounds. As written, the Committee could require all Americans to obtain health insurance coverage of abortion procedures as part of the bill’s new individual mandate.

Funneling Patients into Government Care

Abolition of Private Insurance Market: The bill imposes new regulations on all health insurance offerings, with only limited exceptions. Existing individual market policies could remain in effect—but only so long as the carrier “does not change any of its terms and conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing” once the bill takes effect. With the exception of these grandfathered individual plans subject to numerous restrictions, insurance purchased on the individual market “may only be offered” until the Exchange comes into effect, thus abolishing the private market for individual health insurance and requiring all non-employer-based coverage to be purchased through the bureaucrat-run Exchange.

Employer coverage shall be considered exempt from the additional federal mandates, but only for a five year “grace period”—after which all the bill’s mandates shall apply. By applying new federal mandates and regulations to employer-sponsored coverage, this provision would increase health costs for businesses and their workers, encourage employers to drop existing coverage, and leave employees to access care through the government-run Exchange.

“Pay-or-Play” Mandate on Employers: The bill requires that employers offer health insurance coverage, and contribute to such coverage at least 72.5 percent of the cost of a basic individual policy—as defined by the Health Benefits Advisory Council—and at least 65 percent of the cost of a basic family policy, for full-time employees. The bill further extends the employer mandate to part-time employees, with contribution levels to be determined by the Commissioner, and mandates that any health care contribution “for which there is a corresponding reduction in the compensation of the employee” will not comply with the mandate—which would encourage them to lay off workers.

Employers must comply with the mandate by “paying” a tax of 8 percent of wages in lieu of “playing” by offering benefits that meet the criteria above. In addition, beginning in the Exchange’s second year, employers whose workers choose to purchase coverage through the Exchange would be forced to pay the 8 percent tax to finance their workers’ Exchange policy—even if they offer coverage to their workers.

The bill includes a limited exemption for small businesses from the employer mandate—those with total payroll under $500,000 annually would be exempt, and those with payrolls between $500,000 and
$750,000 would be subjected to lower tax penalties (2-6 percent, as opposed to 8 percent for firms with payrolls over $750,000). However, these limits are not indexed for inflation, and the threshold amounts would likely become increasingly irrelevant over time, meaning virtually all employers would be subjected to the 8 percent payroll tax.

The bill amends ERISA to require the Secretary of Labor to conduct regular plan audits and “conduct investigations” and audits “to discover non-compliance” with the mandate. The bill provides a further penalty of $100 per employee per day for non-compliance with the “pay-or-play” mandate—subject only to a limit of $500,000 for unintentional failures on the part of the employer.

The employer mandate would impose added costs on businesses with respect to both their payroll and administrative overhead. An economic model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer found that an employer mandate could result in the loss of up to 5.5 million jobs as employers lay off employees to avoid providing costly, government-forced health insurance.

Individual Mandate: The bill places a tax on individuals who do not purchase “acceptable health care coverage,” as defined by the bureaucratic standards in the bill. The tax would constitute 2.5 percent of adjusted gross income, up to the amount of the national average premium through the Exchange. The tax would not apply to dependent filers, non-resident aliens, individuals resident outside the United States, and those exempted on religious grounds. “Acceptable coverage” includes qualified Exchange plans, “grandfathered” individual and group health plans, Medicare and Medicaid plans, and military and veterans’ benefits.

For individuals with incomes of under $100,000, the cost of complying with the mandate would be under $2,000—raising questions of how effective the mandate will be, as paying the tax would in many cases cost less than purchasing an insurance policy. Despite, or perhaps because of, this fact, the bill language does not include an affordability exemption from the mandate; thus, if the many benefit mandates imposed raise premiums so as to make coverage less affordable for many Americans, they will have no choice but to pay an additional tax as their “penalty” for not being able to afford coverage. Then-Senator Barack Obama, pointed out in a February 2008 debate that in Massachusetts, the one State with an individual mandate, “there are people who are paying fines and still can’t afford [health insurance], so now they’re worse off than they were. They don’t have health insurance and they’re paying a fine.”

Medicare Advantage: The bill reduces Medicare Advantage (MA) payment benchmarks to levels paid by traditional Medicare—which provides less care to seniors—over a three-year period. This arbitrary adjustment would reduce access for millions of seniors to MA plans that have brought additional benefits.

The bill imposes requirements on MA plans to offer cost-sharing no greater than that provided in government-run Medicare, and imposes price controls on MA plans, limiting their ability to offer innovative benefit packages. This policy would encourage plans to keep seniors sick, rather than manage their chronic disease.

The bill also gives the Secretary blanket authority to reject “any or every bid by an MA organization,” as well as any bid by a carrier offering private Part D Medicare prescription drug coverage, giving federal bureaucrats the power to eliminate the MA program entirely—by rejecting all plan bids for nothing more than the arbitrary reason that an Administration wishes to force the 10 million beneficiaries enrolled in MA back into traditional, government-run Medicare against their will.Tax Increases

Government-Forced Insurance Penalties: Offsetting payments to finance the government takeover of health care would include taxes on individuals not complying with the mandate to purchase coverage, as well as taxes and payments by businesses associated with the “pay-or-play” mandate.

Taxes on Small Businesses: The bill also imposes a new 5.4 percent “surtax” on individuals with incomes over incomes over $500,000 and families with incomes greater than $1 million. The tax would apply beginning in 2011. As more than half of all high-income filers are small businesses, this provision would cripple small businesses and destroy jobs during a deep recession.

Taxes on Health Plans: The bill prohibits the reimbursement of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals from Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Medical Savings Accounts, Flexible Spending Arrangements (FSAs), and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs), and increases the penalties for non-qualified HSA withdrawals from 10 percent to 20 percent, effective in 2011. Because these savings vehicles are tax-preferred, adopting this prohibition would raise taxes by $8.2 billion over ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

H.R. 3962 would place a cap on FSA contributions, beginning in 2012; contributions could only total $2,500 per year, subject to annual adjustments linked to the growth in general (not medical) inflation. Members may be concerned that these provisions would first raise taxes, and second—by imposing additional restrictions on health savings vehicles popular with tens of millions of Americans—undermines the promise that “If you like your current coverage, you can keep it.” At least 8 million individuals hold insurance policies eligible for HSAs, and millions more participate in FSAs. All these individuals would be subject to additional coverage restrictions—and tax increases—under this provision.

The bill also repeals the current-law tax deductibility of subsidies provided to companies offering prescription drug companies to retirees. Many may be concerned that this provision would lead to companies dropping their current coverage as a result.

Taxes on Health Products: Finally, H.R. 3962 would impose a 2.5 percent excise tax on medical devices, beginning in 2013. Many may echo the concerns of the Congressional Budget Office and other independent experts, who have confirmed that this tax would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices—and ultimately higher premiums.Budgetary Gimmicks

Unpaid-For Doctor Fix: While the Democrats claim their bill is now deficit-neutral, the majority also introduced a separate piece of stand-alone legislation (H.R. 3961). The more than $200 billion cost of this legislation is not paid for, thus adding hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit spending and interest costs to the federal debt. Many may also note that the Congressional Budget Office recently analyzed similar legislation (S. 1776) as raising Medicare premiums by $70 billion.

Long-Term Care Program: The bill includes a new program for long-term care services that provides a benefit of at least $50 per day to individuals unable to perform certain functions of daily living. As the long-term care program requires individuals to contribute five years’ worth of premiums before becoming eligible for benefits, the program would find its revenue over the first ten years diverted to finance other spending in Democrats’ health care “reform.” However, the Congressional Budget Office, in analyzing similar provisions included in Section 191 of legislation considered by the Senate HELP Committee, found that “if the Secretary did not modify the program to improve its actuarial soundness, the program would add to future federal budget deficits in a large and growing fashion beginning a few years beyond the 10-year budget window.” As even Democrats such as Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) have called the program a “Ponzi scheme,” many may find any legislation that relies upon such a program to maintain “deficit-neutrality” fiscally irresponsible and not credible.

Coming this Halloween, and sticking around to haunt the United States and the American people for decades afterward if it passes, a movie so terrifying it should have you running to the phone to call your Congressman:

Some distant day, many scientists believe, the earth will be devoid of human life due to some cosmic catastrophe or – ultimately – due to our depleted sun transforming into a red giant. The truly good news about such an otherwise bleak future is that the Obama administration will presumably no longer be able to blame Republicans for the economy that they “inherited.”

Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June — the worst in 26 years.

“The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited,” said Biden, who is leading the administration’s effort to implement it’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

“Now, that doesn’t — I’m not — it’s now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we’re in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we’re in,” he told me.

The vice president argued more time is needed for the stimulus to work.

“We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package,” he said. “The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money.”

I pressed the vice president, who is also leading the administration’s middle-class task force, on whether he’d rule out a second stimulus package.

“So, no second stimulus?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t say that,” Biden said, “I think it’s premature to make that judgment. This was set up to spend out over 18 months. There are going to be major programs that are going to take effect in September, $7.5 billion for broadband, new money for high-speed rail, the implementation of the grid — the new electric grid. And so this is just starting, the pace of the ball is now going to increase.”

Let’s not tell anyone that liberal Paul Krugman’s warning that we need a second stimulus is secret code for, “The first stimulus didn’t work worth squat, so let’s throw more money down the toilet.” And let’s for DAMN sure not tell anyone that unemployment benefits are going to be ending for workers starting in September and things will truly begin to increasingly suck after that as the unemployment rate grows like “the other ‘green shoot'” up and up and up.

Joe Biden says, “We and everyone else misjudged the economy.” No, Joe, it just aint so. Just you and your stupid liberal friends misjudged the economy. Don’t drag anyone else into your ignorance. Business professionals back in October predicted that Obama would literally bankrupt the country within three years if he was elected. Republicans (such as Paul Ryan) widely predicted the terribly flawed and terribly partisan pork-laden stimulus would fail – which is why only three out of 239 Republicans voted for it (and you can actually make that TWO out of 239, given that one of the three “Republicans” was RINO traitor-turned Democrat Arlen Specter).

Please don’t try to involve conservatives in your party’s stupidity, Joe. It aint right to lie.

It’s also rather funny that Vice President Biden would say “there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited.” Please realize that for the last two years – and most definitely for the last eight or nine months – Barack Obama and Joe Biden have been comparing the present economy to the Great Depression. And now they are claiming they didn’t know how bad it was? What’s worse than the Great Depression? It is beyond ludicrous that these people can spend all this time demonizing the economy as the worst imaginable, and then argue they didn’t know that it was that bad.

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.

In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.

How can Biden, Obama, or Democrats claim they didn’t realize how bad the economy really was after their previous constant fearmongering of the economy?

And the most famous and oft-used line, of course, is that Democrats keep claiming that they “inherited” the economy.

For the record, the Dow Industrial Average was at 11,986.04 on November 3, 2006 when Republicans were last in control of Congress. The unemployment rate for October of 2006 was at 4.4% when Republicans last ran things. As I write this, the Dow is at 8163.60 (on July 7), and the unemployment rate is at 9.5%, respectively. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have been running the House and the Senate for the last two years, and a fine job of running the country into the ground they’ve done.

Just why is it that Democrats can have control over both the House and Senate while an economy goes from prosperity to impoverishment, and still bear no responsibility for such a result? But that’s the narrative, and both the Democratic Party and the mainstream media stuck to their scripts as though the lines had been written by Shakespeare himself. Do you see the great shining lie that you’ve been told, and told over and over again?

Since the Democrats have been in charge on both branches of Congress, the housing market has collapsed, the banks have collapsed, Fannie and Freddie have collapsed, the auto industry has collapsed, and things have generally turned to the fecal matter that Pelosi’s and Reid’s head are full of, generally.

The ONLY thing that Democrats actually “inherited” was moron genes, a talent for demagoguery and deceit, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (please see “moron genes”).

Now, the OTHER thing that Democrats love to claim was that Republicans are to blame for the economic disaster because Republican George Bush was President when it happened. And we are all to conveniently forget the fact that such reasoning should likewise make Democrat Barack Obama – who is president RIGHT NOW – is thereby responsible for the current state of the disaster that he nonetheless keeps blaming on Bush.

On what possible grounds are we to blame Bush? What is it that Bush did or didn’t do that created our disaster, and which Democrats who controlled both the House and the Senate are somehow absolved from having done or failed to do? Bush, we have been repeatedly lectured, failed to regulate the housing finance industry. And that lack of regulation caused the financial industry to self-destruct. Because the government is far better able to run things than the private sector, as we all know.

Well, wrong, wrong, and wrong, respectively. But let’s stick with the Democrats’ chief script item and consider just who truly failed to regulate the housing finance industry when it actually would have done some good, and who was really in bed with the worst players who created the crisis in the first place.

First of all, Bush TRIED to regulate the housing finance industry. And the ONLY thing that kept him from succeeding was DEMOCRATS.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

And it ends:

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

Democrats blocked the passage of the Bush attempt to regulate the housing finance industry. They were the ones who killed regulation, not Republicans. They said there wasn’t a problem. They said that everything was just peachy dandy.

Democrats essentially say that the American people should blame George Bush for not being able to stop Democrats from being stupid, incompetent, and depraved vermin. But how can anyone stop Democrats from being stupid, incompetent, and depraved vermin? It would be like trying to stop the wind from blowing.

REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.

Even Bill Clinton – hardly a Republican source – blamed Democrats and NOT Republicans for refusing to regulate the housing finance industry:

Bill Clinton on Thursday told ABC’s Chris Cuomo that Democrats for years have been “resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

So the bottom line is this: Democrats blocked reform and regulation. They denied there was a problem. They continued to deny that there were any problems, and continued to block reform and regulation until right before the whole economy went down the drain.

And then they blamed the Republicans for the mess that they had created, refused to fix, and denied even existed in the first place.

Okay, okay, so it was the Democrats who actually screwed up the universe, but you still have to admit that the Obama Administration inherited the problem. It clearly wasn’t in power when the fit hit the shan. Right?

Not quite so fast.

Technically, the Obama Administration is obviously not be to blame, having only began its hopefully very short life on January 20, 2009. But Barack Obama personally? You should probably know what a nasty piece of work your president was before he became your president.

Barack Obama as candidate for president made Penny Pritzker – who was at the very EPICENTER of the subprime loan fiasco – his national finance chair. She paid a “fine” of $460 million dollars to basically buy her way out of prison for her part in the early beginnings of the collapse that would eventually extend to the entire economy. Penny Pritzker was to the stability of the housing finance industry on Wall Street what Freddie Krueger was to the dreams of teen agers on Elm Street; just what kind of Faustian deal do you believe the politician who took more money in less time from the worst players in the crisis than anyone bar none struck to have knife-gloved Penny Krueger open up her Rolodex full of demons?

Barack Obama as a private citizen was one of the ACORN lawyers who sued Citibank in 1994 and forced – FORCED – them to reduce their credit standards and make extremely housing mortgage loans to minorities who would subsequently prove unable to pay them. And the ACORN suit took advantage of the openings created by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The result of that lawsuit changed the housing finance industry forever afterward – and basically doomed it as soon as housing prices started to drop.

So as President Barack Obama may have “inherited” the crisis; but as a private citizen, as a Senator, and as a candidate for President, he was at the very center of the mess that created the crisis right up to his giant Dumbo ears.

And as Obama continues to blame his inability to handle the economy on what he “inherited,” let us not forget that it was Barack Obama who swore up and down that his Generational Theft Act of 2009 would fix the economy – NOT Republicans and NOT George Bush – and it was his economic plan that completely failed to produce the promised results.

Obama’s answer is still MORE colossal spending. The first stimulus – advertised as a $787 billion package but actually costing $3.27 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office – is now said to have been too low. We need more porkulus, they tell us. A lot more. We need to borrow more massive debt and pile up more massive deficits that will crush our economy with staggering interest payments in the very near future and ultimately cause a complete collapse of our way of life. We need to nationalize our health care so it will be more like the $86 trillion-in-the-hole runaway freight train to destruction that Medicare is. And we need cap-and-trade legislation that will cap our productivity and trade our prosperity to ensure that our economy can never hope to be productive again.

Keep blaming Bush. Keep blaming Republicans. Keep blaming “failed conservative policies.” Blame ANYONE and ANYTHING but Barack Hussein Obama and the Democratic Party that is now in total control of everything.

Just let me shout in your face that by doing soyou will help create an economy that will make the Great Depression look like prosperity when the policies that you so stupidly supported implode into staggering debt and even more staggering hyperinflation. And you and your children will starve shoeless in the cold while food riots and tax rebellions erupt all around you as your once great nation is reduced to banana republic status.